Friday 26 June 2009 19.01 EDT
First published on Friday 26 June 2009 19.01 EDT

Mariah Carey. Doesn't do stairs. Made the diabolical film Glitter. Pre-breakdown, her parting words to a mouth-agape TRL audience were, "[I want] one day off so I can eat ice cream and look at rainbows." So, it's a surprise that instead of heading to Promises, Malibu for a treatment for "exhaustion" she's released possibly the best song of her career. And it's about Eminem.

"It must be the weed, it must be the E ... Why you so obsessed with me?" she asks in Obsessed. And it's a fair question.

Something romantic is said to have happened between the two divas in 2001, when Mariah asked him to rap on her Charmbracelet album. He claimed their subsequent relationship lasted for half a year while she, on her first Eminem-baiting tune (2002's Clown) sang, "You should've never intimated we were lovers/ When you know very well we never even touched each other". Love-40 to Mariah.

Cut to 2003 and news leaked out that Eminem had kept voicemails of Mariah being, well, a bit "weird and graphic". All in a baby voice. Mazza defended the messages by saying, "I have little voices. I do things like that that are fun and games."

Shhh. Do you hear that you two? It's the sound of any potential future partners running for the hills.

Anyway, he played a message allegedly from Carey during his Anger Management tour. Before performing Puke, Mariah says, "I heard you were getting back with your ex-wife. Why won't you see me? Why won't you call me? You're not calling me."

Things were quiet for a couple of years, but before you could say "can you two just get a room please?" Eminem updated us on his feelings about Mariah on Bagpipes From Baghdad from his recent Relapse album, crowing about her current husband by saying, "Mariah, what's ever happened to us, why did we have to break up ... Nick Cannon better back the fuck up. I'm not playing, I want her back, you punk."

Cannon hit back: "Homeboy is still obsessed with my wife, the same female that wouldn't let him get to second base from eight years ago," he wrote on his website. "What type of grown a** man lies about getting with a chick?" Then, most shocking of all, made a terrible, terrible pun: "Only Slim Lamey! LOL!"

Meanwhile, on his radio station Shade45, Eminem gallantly hinted that he had peed on the five-octave singer. Classy.

Hilariously, who or what to believe seems to come down to who we think is the less unhinged of two multimillionaire fantasists.

OK, so she has a preternatural obsession with unicorns, butterflies and dressing like she's in a Black Eyed Peas tribute band but, on reflection, Mimi's the one who seems the least "Games Workshop" of the two. Eminem's frankly Freudian mother issues, his multiple personalities and homicidal tendencies towards ex-wife Kim make him possibly not marriage material.

We're pretty sure this one will run and run, but if Obsessed is any measure of the quality of the verbal volleyball disses, we can't wait for Eminem's guttural comeback.